Monday marked the first day of school for kids all across the USA. Some even started the previous week. My kids have one more week of sleeping in, video games and devastating laziness before they are scheduled back to school next Monday.

I’ve noticed varying degrees of both excitement and angst expressed by parents and kids about the prospect of going back to school. It seems my friend Billy Coffey views the start of a new school year with a tinge of melancholy. I believe he referred to it as feeling like death.

Then again, Billy’s a professional writer. Writers tend to have a “glass half empty, dirty and chipped” outlook on life at times. (And if you’re a professional writer and happen to be reading this, don’t bother arguing with me. You know how you are.)

I, on the other hand, look forward to the new school year. Always have.

It’s an opportunity to start over with a clean slate. And not just for the kids, but for the teachers and parents, too. We all have perfect attendance and passing grades. None of us have forgotten about the parent/teacher conference that was scheduled or forgotten to pack our kid’s lunch on mystery meat day in the cafeteria. (Which incidentally, it pretty much every day.) We haven’t fought about homework, bedtimes, or missed assignments. All is set to zero and opportunities for greatness abound.

And while we’ve all had a safe, relaxing and fun summer, I think my kids are ready to get back into the predictable routine that the school year brings.

I have a love/hate thing going with new school years. I like the routine and sports seasons starting back up. But in the summer, I see how long I can go without cooking dinner (my best record is 4 months which is longer than summer is, but whatever).

Once school is back on, I feel I should go back to cooking nutritious meals than give my daughter the brain power to tackle pre-Algebra.